Apart from reflecting about migrations, the performance strives to awaken empathy with people that were ” transplanted” – through movement, songs, contact with the plants, earth and water by actress and musician Ljubica Damčević. The perfromance includes videos in which documentary materials are intertwined just as the fates of emigrants.

The motivation for creating TERRA is the need to talk about migrants and migrations in a more compassionate way. We live in a time of vast amounts of global information through numerous media and digital platforms. This today makes some facts and stories quickly accessible and even harder to hide (such as violence, wars, atrocities, crimes), but on the other hand it does not seem to contribute to a general understanding of the Other and a sense of solidarity and help.

Statistics and TV reports do not speak as loudly as we would like, even when they are alarming. Forced displacement has doubled in the last decade. With numbers estimated at 80 million in mid-2020, we are getting used to the suffering of refugees and migrants around the world.

Nevertheless, I was moved to start to imagine this performance at the exact moment of watching one documentary, when the Syrian immigrant was desperately screaming:” You can’t do this to us, you can’t do this!”. In front of the official of one central European country, who was just reading the list of names to be relocated to the another country, this man was about to be separated from his family and friends.

The performance TERRA is directed at a place in our mind and heart that has the capacity to feel the pain of others and aims to warn of the need to care for people likewise plants and our natural environment, our planet with our fellow citizens who are seeking new country.” Director, Jadranka Andjelic

In it, plants and people play, both of them with similar fates: uprooted from their yard and forcibly transplanted into another world – not always friendly and inclined to help. In the documentary video that is part of the play, people are not just numbers of refugees, they are faces, expressions, views from which thoughts and feelings can be read.

The whole performance is presented before us by the outstanding artist, violinist, singer, actress, performer Ljubica Damčević. Her role is a ball of short texts but also songs in Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Italian, our language, which she sings to us in her wonderful soft and dark voice. Admiration for Jadranka Andjelic’s delicate and investigative direction. Ivana Stefanovic

Concept and Direction: Jadranka Andjelic

Performer: Ljubica Damčević

Songs: Traditional songs from Syria, Corsica, Sardinia, Cyprus, Jewish

Plants: Chlorophytum comosum [Spider plant], Nephrolepis exaltata[Fern],

Amaryllis, Calluna Vulgaris [Heather], Bromeliaceae [Bromelia], Thuja, Hibiscus

Text montage: Jadranka Anđelić i Ljubica Damčević

Costume and set: Jadranka Anđelić

Video editing: Una Škandro

Sound recording: Zoran Vasiljević

Research: Teodora Barać

Photos: Djordje Tomić